TAIL for OVMS IA64?

Just wanted to check if there is an existing port of the TAIL binary for OpenVMS IA64? We were using previously the TAIL freeware from Hunter Goatley on our Alpha servers, but I was getting errors when I tried to compile it in our Itanium server. I tried doing a type/tail on our Oracle alert log, but I was getting the error "-RMS-F-ORG, invalid file organization value". I also tried a Perl implementation of tail but it was not functioning properly. I don't want to install GNV on our production servers, so we are only looking for a native tail binary on OVMS IA64.

2. I am attaching the log when I tried to compile the source code for Hunter's program.

3. I am doing the compilation on a standalone HP Integrity rx2660 with OpenVMS 8.3-1H1, and compiling it using HP C v7.3-018.

4. Problem with the Perl script TAIL implementation is if I tried to put the parameter to specify the number of lines I would like to see, e.g $ tail -n10 operator.log, it will still print out the whole file. I am attaching the TAIL Perl script that I got from the internet (already forgot which site I got it).

Re: TAIL for OVMS IA64?

That file might well have the LOG extension, but (based on the posted settings, and particularly that 904 byte record length) it is apparently not intended for use by humans. (A situation which reminds me of this forum software, reading that last and garbled post from Hartmut. But I digress.)

Check with whatever is writing that log, and see if you can adjust the record length to something more appropriate.

It's too old. It doesn't know about ODS5 extended file names. Ithas a very unfortunate default_string. I'm sure that if I looked at itlonger, I could find any number of reasons for a complete re-write.However, I took out some of the most lame parts ("#ifdef __alpha"), sothat it might get past a modern compiler in more places, and it'sattached here.﻿

I deny everything.

Well, I would have attached it here, but today I'm on a Mac withFirefox, so I can post a message normally instead of as a textattachment (which is all I've gotten to work with SWB on my main VMSsystem), but here I can't seem to get an attachment accepted. So, for alimited time only:

Re: TAIL for OVMS IA64?

I'm with Hein on this, the way TYPE/TAIL works (or rather, doesn't work) is rather silly and could be improved significantly with little effort, if engineering cared about usability.

Something I've seen with log files is the phenomenon of TYPE/TAIL working for a particular log file while it's being actively written, but then failing with -RMS-F-ORG once it's been closed. It's usually a STREAM_LF log file from a C program. What happens is the MRS and LRL of the open file are 0 while the file is being written, so TYPE is happy, but once it's closed, LRL is set to 32767, which TYPE doesn't like.

$ SET FILE/ ﻿ATTR=LRL=511 on an affected file is one way around it, another is to reset the DECC default LRL:

Re: TAIL for OVMS IA64?

Those DECC$ logical names and the related non-modular morass can be stabiility kryptonite.

I'd recommend those are either defined /USER only, or are embedded within specific and task-dedicated processes. Defining those logical names with /SYSTEM risks knocking over something else, and quite possibly with an obscure error.

And I'm not arguing that TYPE /TAIL is a mess. Just that a "log" file that's over 132 or so characters in width isn't intended for (VMS) humans.

Like TYPE /TAIL's various issues, the lack of baked-in word-wrapping are related parts of the UI-level problems and omissions. (When the easiest way to wrap text is GNV, there's something missing in the base OS.)